


Walking This Strange World

by Saucery



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambition, Angst, Apprenticeship, Attraction, Aurors, Awkwardness, BAMF Harry, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Harry, Bottom Draco, Cohabitation, Companionable Snark, Cross-Generation Relationship, DILF Harry, Desire, Diva Draco, Draco is a Sassy Little Shit, Drama, Education, Falling In Love, Fanon Draco, Fiendfyre, Fluff, Friendship, Gay Draco Malfoy, HP: EWE, Happy Ending, Harry is a Manly Ball of Lustful Angst, Humor, Inappropriate Erections, Life Debt, Living Together, Lust, M/M, Magic, Ministry of Magic, Not Epilogue Compliant, Nudity, Opposites Attract, POV Draco Malfoy, Pining, Plotty, Possessive Behavior, Post-Canon, Post-War, Potions, Protective Harry, Romance, Romantic Comedy, SUCH FANON, Sarcasm, Sexual Tension, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Stubble, Studying, Stupid Crushes, Stupidity In General, Sugar Daddy Harry, Teenage Draco, Thirty-Something Harry, Time Travel, Top Harry, Touching, Training, VERY DRACO, Wizarding World, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 22:03:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4238169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Harry hadn’t managed to save Draco from the Fiendfyre?</p><p>As far as Harry knows, Draco dies that day, and Harry lives on, haunted by the memory of Draco’s fall into the flames. The loss jars Harry into realizing his feelings for Draco—but it’s too late. Seventeen years later, Harry is still alone after a string of casual relationships, unable to rediscover that depth of emotion with anyone else.</p><p>As far as Draco knows, the reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated. He not only survives the Fiendfyre, but finds himself inexplicably in the future, a future where people think he’s been dead for seventeen years, and where an older, jaded, stubbled Potter is bizarrely fixated on him.</p><p>Never mind that, though; Draco has a life to get on with and a reputation to repair, a Potions apprenticeship to adjust to and an unexpected friendship with the young Teddy Lupin. He mostly tries not to think about the fact that he’s stuck living with Potter, who’s become disturbingly attractive with age, and who seems disturbingly attracted to him, in return.</p><p>Essentially, this is an excuse to indulge my age difference kink. Um. Enjoy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [birdsofshore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdsofshore/gifts).



> Inspired by birdsofshore’s wonderful story, [Draco at Nineteen](http://archiveofourown.org/chapters/9296113). If you’re into age difference and time travel—in fact, if you’re into well-written porn, period—I strongly recommend you read that story!
> 
> The title is from [this poem](https://sites.google.com/site/projectgoethe/Home/vasko-popa/vrati-mi-moje-krpice) by Vasko Popa. I’m a huge Popa fan, and, again, I strongly recommend that you read the poem, because it’s Drarry through and through.
> 
> Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious, this is an AU of _Deathly Hallows_ , diverging from the Battle of Hogwarts onwards. Several characters that were supposed to have died didn’t die. The epilogue didn’t happen, either.

* * *

 

Potter was an utter lunatic. They were surrounded by stifling smoke, with the Room of Hidden Things wavering around them like an oven mid-bake, and Potter was volunteering them as hot-cross buns. He was diving after that sodding diadem, arrowing their broomstick down toward the Fiendfyre, as if Voldemort’s trinket mattered more than their bloody _lives_.

“What are you doing?” Draco yelled. “The door’s that way!”

Potter ignored him—of course he did, the arrogant prick—and grabbed the diadem as if it were a Snitch, in a move that Draco had seen all too often in Quidditch matches.

“Show-off,” Draco muttered, and as they raced toward the exit, Draco allowed himself to believe that they were free, that they were going to make it, that Draco would see his parents again.

But then a roaring dragon of fire reared its head in front of them, snapping its jaws, and Potter jolted, pitching sideways as they swerved. Without even thinking about it, Draco wrapped his arms around Potter’s waist and hauled, with every ounce of strength in him, pulling Potter back from the brink. Later, Draco would wonder what had possessed him to perform such a rashly selfless act, because toppling Potter would’ve halved the weight on the broom, and thereby hastened Draco’s escape.

Gryffindor idiocy was infectious, apparently.

“Blimey,” panted Potter. “Thanks.”

Draco would’ve replied—preferably with an insult—except that in stabilizing Potter, Draco had destabilized himself. His heart seized in his chest as he scrabbled to stay upright, and as they were forced to swerve once more, Draco lost his balance and slipped, losing his grip on the broom. For a terrible, motionless moment, Draco was suspended like a fly in amber, poised before a fall, the flames of the Fiendfyre licking greedily at his back like great, buffeting tongues.

Then, the moment shattered. Potter screamed, a wild, inhuman sound, and lunged for Draco’s hand, but it was too late. Draco knew it was too late, because he fell in what felt like a slow, inevitable arc, the seconds themselves made molten and sluggish by the blaze. The searing inferno opened up to envelop him, an embrace as profound and depthless as Hell, singeing his robes and blistering his skin. Consuming him.

In the reflection of the Fiendfyre, Potter’s eyes were a strange, glowing, gold-tinged green, like Mother's favorite jewels in that necklace Father had given her for their tenth anniversary. Potter’s eyes weren’t at all the chilling green of the Killing Curse, alight as they were with a horror, an urgency Draco didn’t comprehend.

Draco kept his own eyes open, despite the scorching heat that dried them in their sockets, because he had to keep looking back. He had to. It was his final accomplishment, the only victory he could claim—the sight of Harry Potter’s face, stricken as if with loss.

_Avada Kedavra_ , Draco thought to himself, and died.

 

* * *

 

Or he was sure he’d died. He’d been more positive about it than he had been about defeating Potter in Quidditch, and that was saying something.

Instead, between one instant and the next, he tumbled to the ground with a painful thud. Why was there a thud? Speaking of which, why was there a _ground_? Where was the Fiendfyre?

“Ow,” Draco said, and groaned as he tried to get his badly jarred joints to cooperate with him. He managed to lever himself onto his elbows, peering blearily at the sturdy—if empty—shelves of the Room of Hidden Things. He noted that his clothes were still smoking, that his entire body throbbed like a giant burn, and that his palms, when he raised them to study them, were as red as lobsters. He stung all over, like he’d been bitten by a thousand fiery bees.

So he had fallen. Partway, at any rate. But what had interrupted him? And what could have doused the Fiendfyre?

A gasp startled him, and he whipped around—as clumsily as the charred remnant of a boy could, anyway. He lurched onto tottering feet, fumbling for a wand that wasn’t there, and confronted…

Granger. Hair in an unfamiliar (if still bushy) bun.

Lovegood. Wearing a pair of purple spectacles and what appeared to be one of Dumbledore’s hats.

And Potter. Gawping like the world’s most stubbled goldfish.

Wait. Why did Potter have stubble? And… wrinkles? Around his eyes? Tiny, crow-footed wrinkles, but they were there, and they were alarming. Had the fire melted the youth off him? But then, what about Lovegood’s wrinkles? And Granger—was she _pregnant_? Large as her belly was, it was impossible that Weasley, in spite of the despicable, rabbit-like potency of his bloodline, could possibly have fathered a child on her with such alacrity. The last Draco had seen of them, they were fleeing from the Fiendfyre, and Granger hadn’t sported the slightest bulge.

Conclusion: He was in the future.

And Potter was here, which meant Voldemort was dead.

The Death Eaters had been vanquished. A bitter, tangled, complicated relief rose up within Draco. He hated being on the losing side, but in this future, Voldemort wasn’t around to terrorize him or his family.

“Fuck.” Draco swayed, fetching up against a shelf. “No,” he said, “don’t tell me. The year is…” He squinted at Potter and hazarded a guess. “…2010?”

“Oh, god.” Potter seemed inclined to sway, himself. He was unsteady, his voice feeble. His expression reminded Draco of that same, inexplicable desperation from the fire. “God, you’re—Malfoy?”

“Gratified as I am to have you according me the divinity I deserve,” Draco snapped, “could we skip the touching reunions and establish what year it is? Because that’s the pressing issue, here, don’t you reckon?”

“Right,” said Granger briskly, business-like now that her shock was fading. “Firstly, no, it’s not 2010. It’s 2015.”

“Merlin’s balls,” Draco boggled. “You’re all _old_.”

“Secondly, we have to get you to the hospital wing. You resemble a roasted pheasant.”

“A roasted peacock, thank you very much,” said Draco, half-hysterically. “I’m no common bird.”

“It _is_ you,” Potter breathed, for all the world as if Draco were a divine messenger. Had Draco’s future self risen to such heights that he’d founded a religion?

No. Draco recoiled at the prospect of behaving so like the Dark Lord. If Draco had to arrange gatherings of fawning sycophants, orgies and lavish dinner parties were preferable to religions.

“Welcome back,” said Lovegood, the only person who wasn’t at all phased by the abrupt manifestation of a time-traveling, semi-grilled Malfoy. She patted Draco’s arm and beamed at him beatifically. “The people we lose have a way of coming back to us, in the end. If not always in the way we expect.”

So saying, she ambled out of the chamber, humming to herself.

“Well, she’s as barmy as usual,” Draco said, oddly comforted by the fact that Lovegood hadn’t changed.

“She’s the headmistress of Hogwarts,” Granger said, sharply. “Watch your manners.”

“She’s the _what_?” Draco exclaimed, but then Potter was there, supporting Draco as he took a staggering step forward. A Mobilicorpus would have been emasculating, and perhaps Potter understood that. “Augh, I hurt everywhere. And stop petting me, Potter. What on earth are you doing?”

“Checking that you’re all right.”

“Do I look all right to you?”

“Now that you’re snarking back at me, you do.” Potter smiled a wobbly smile, despite his pallor. He still had that brittle, spooked air to him, as if he’d seen a ghost.

It was insulting. Particularly given how close Draco had come to actually dying. He’d prefer it if Potter commented on his remarkable resilience, and how it was the sign of a strong character, instead of treating him like a fragile tea-cup with cracks along its sides.

Draco had _bent time_. Somehow. That in itself was a cause for pride, was it not? Although Draco had no clue what he’d done, or how he’d done it.

No matter. He’d return to his own era, soon. As soon as he got his aches and pains tended to, and recovered enough to cast whatever complex magic had gotten him here, to begin with.

Not that Draco relished resuming the war that had almost killed him, but if he didn’t go back, he wouldn’t have a future. Confusing as that notion was. That, and his parents were waiting for him. They’d been planning to withdraw from the war at the earliest opportunity, and Draco had to go back and pretend to be Voldemort’s loyal pet, obeying orders until they could leave the Death Eaters altogether. There was a logic to what the Malfoys had planned. A reassuring logic, a Slytherin logic, that would ensure their survival.

Compared to the past he had left, this future world, with a conciliatory Potter and a matronly Granger and a headmistress Lovegood, was far too unnerving, despite hinting at a post-war peace. It was foreign to him. Alien. Disconcerting. And he hadn’t even seen much of it, yet.

“Where are my parents?” he asked.

Potter… paused. After a beat, he said, “They’re safe. You can meet them, but get yourself seen to, before that.”

_That_ was fishy. “And what about Crabbe and Goyle?”

“Goyle made it, just fine. Crabbe… has burns. A lot of scars. But he’s fine, too.”

How those two had survived the war without him, Draco had no idea, but they _had_ , and that was good to know. “What’s Loony doing as Headmistress? What happened to McGonagall?”

“Minerva retired. She nominated Luna to replace her.”

“Why Lovegood?”

“Because Luna’s a renowned war hero, and she’s the wisest of us all.”

“That’s what wisdom looks like?” Draco said, distrustfully.

Potter snorted. “She abolished the House system. Got fired for it by the Ministry, but got reinstated when the students went on strike and refused to attend classes. Many parents supported her decision, as well.”

“But what about House pride?” Draco was unsettled by the concept of Slytherins not being Slytherins. Slytherin had long been a bastion of traditional values and ancient ways, and the disassembling of its proud history upset him.

“Should you be saying that?” Granger remarked. “The penultimate days of Slytherin weren’t days of pride, but of shame.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Draco said, tiredly. “We were trying to stay alive. Like everybody else. If our parents and siblings weren’t being held hostage, we might have—” Draco remembered Dumbledore’s offer, and all but gagged on his regret. “—done it differently.”

“We wouldn’t have won the war without them,” Potter said, quietly. “Not without what Draco’s mum did, and not without Draco and Snape dying to save my life.”

“Dying to save your…” Draco stumbled to a halt, forcing to Potter to do the same. “I _died?_ Me?” That was unimaginable. “And Snape?” Not as unimaginable, but the realization that Snape with his billowing robes and solemn demeanor had perished was difficult to cope with. He’d been a constant of Draco’s childhood, sometimes out of the Dark Lord’s favor and sometimes the target of Lucius’s suspicions, but he’d taken care of Draco, nonetheless. Draco felt a deep pang that wasn’t quite grief, but was closer to the regret he felt about Dumbledore. Snape had been his mentor and his steadfast ally, and he was gone.

“Uh.” Potter winced at Granger’s glare. “Sorry. I should’ve… broken that to you more gently.”

“That I’m a corpse, and so’s the only teacher I genuinely liked? Yeah, maybe.” Dizziness gripped Draco, and he said, “Why the devil are you calling me ‘Draco’? It’s creepy.”

Potter went red. “No reason,” he mumbled, and despite being an Adult with a capital A, he suddenly bore a resemblance to the adolescent Draco had left behind. “I’ve… reflected on things, is all. And I do owe you my life. I couldn’t call you Malfoy forever.”

Draco stared. And stared. And let Potter continue dragging him downstairs and through hallways. They were halfway to the infirmary, and they passed no students, likely because classes were in progress. Disregarding his physical discomfort, Draco’s mind raced, piecing together what must have happened. Given the Fiendfyre fiasco, it was obvious that he _had_ died in there—as far as everyone else was concerned. And if he went back to where—rather, when—he came from, he’d die. There was no point in returning. He wouldn’t be of any use to anyone.

At least his parents had made it. At least… they might’ve had another heir. The Malfoy line couldn’t die out like this. It _couldn’t_.

But, it occurred to Draco, it wouldn’t, since he’d just been resurrected.

There was hope.

He laughed shakily, momentarily overwhelmed by how ridiculous his life was. Or was it an afterlife? Technically, it was an afterlife, wasn’t it?

“Please don’t have a nervous breakdown,” Potter said, and Draco’s laugh ended on a jagged bark.

“Potter, if ever there was a reason to have a nervous breakdown, traveling to the future and discovering that you’re dead would be it.”

Granger’s tension eased, softening into an infuriating sympathy. “Come on, then,” she said, as she opened the doors into the hospital wing.

At this point, Draco wasn’t even surprised to see Hannah Abbott in Pomfrey’s apron and cap. He didn’t ask whether Pomfrey had died, or whether she’d merely retired. He’d heard enough about death and dying, today. It was becoming downright depressing.

He collapsed onto the closest bunk, permitting Potter to hoist his legs onto the mattress.

Abbott gaped. “You’re—” She turned to Granger. “Is this a student in an extremely distasteful glamor?”

“I object,” said Draco. “There’s nothing distasteful about me.”

“There is, if you’re joking about the dead.”

“I’m distasteful _and_ a joke _and_ a dead man? Fabulous,” Draco said. “I prefer to think I’m a miracle.” The sheets were marvelously cool against his skin, and he wanted to let go, to fall asleep. Potter hovered over him like heaven’s most stubbly, most messy-haired, most annoying angel.

“No,” Granger said, “he’s Malfoy. The unabridged edition.”

Abbott was stumped. “How…?”

“I have my theories,” Granger said, slowly, “but we’ll debate them afterward. As you can see, Malfoy needs a burn salve.”

“More than a simple salve, I’d wager.” Abbott slashed her wand above Draco, and frowned at the colors that flickered before her. “There’s a cursedness to this, a corrosiveness to the fever that lingers within him.”

“He did nearly get gobbled up by Fiendfyre,” Potter offered.

“Ah,” Abbott said. “I’ll put some salve on him, as an emergency measure, but I’ll get Slughorn to brew an urgent anti-Dark potion that’ll prevent Malfoy from being…” She floundered, no doubt searching for a suitably compassionate euphemism in Draco’s presence. Damned Hufflepuffs.

“…gradually incinerated from within?” Draco finished for her. “How delightful.”

Potter was getting that bull-headed look Draco associated with impending lunacy. “Isn’t Slughorn too doddering to do a quick brew? I can get George to do it faster.”

“George _Weasley_?” Draco yelped in indignation. “That jester? Creating a complex potion?”

“He’s better than Slughorn is,” Potter said, stubbornly. “He does freelance brewing for us at the DMLE.”

So Potter was an Auror. What else could he be? He must be lauded as a hero, as always, killing Dark wizards left and right. Draco twisted his mouth in a sneer, wondering what the legendary Harry Potter was doing in Hogwarts, when he could be out there hunting villains. “There goes my faith in the future of law enforcement.”

“It’ll be restored when George brews you the best potion,” Granger said, firmly, as Abbott conjured a tube of burn salve and, with a flick of her wand, parted Draco’s robes and his shirt.

“Oi!” Draco protested at the indignity, but then the oily salve was slathering itself over him, drugging and minty and exquisitely cold, and he shuddered, letting out a faltering moan. His eyelids slid shut, and he felt his limbs loosen.

There was a hush. Eventually, Potter said, sounding mysteriously hoarse, “I. Um. I’ll go talk. To George.”

“You do that,” Granger said. “I’ve got work to get back to. Hannah, inform us if anything changes.”

There were other words spoken, but Draco was drifting off, future and past and present meaningless to him, now.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The DMLE is the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. But you knew that.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

Draco woke up in an ice bath. He floundered, panicking, going under and gulping in water instead of air. Strangely, though, the water didn’t fill his lungs; it evaporated as he inhaled it, boiling in his throat before vanishing. He should’ve been freezing, but he was white-hot, as if the ice bobbing around him was made of acid, scalding him.

“Now, now,” said Abbott, standing above him with a towel. “You’re burning off the Fiendfyre inside you. Relax.”

“You relax,” Draco spluttered, more horrified at the embarrassment of being reduced to a drowned kitten than he was at Hufflepuffs from the future conspiring to murder him. To make matters worse, Potter entered the bathroom and stood there, gawking. “What are you doing in here, Potty? Get out!”

“I’m afraid he can’t,” Abbott said, mildly but implacably. “He will assist me in drying you.”

“I wasn’t aware that handling a towel was such a demanding task,” Draco said. “Can’t you enchant it to dry me, like you enchanted the salve?”

“The towel is for your body. Harry’s here for your soul.”

“Oh, so he _is_ the Grim Reaper. Thanks for warning me.”

Potter coughed. “I, um. I have to cast a spell on you to activate the last stage of George’s potion.”

“What potion?”

“It’s in the water.” Abbott pointed at the tub. “You can’t see it, but you can feel it. It’s working, isn’t it?”

“If you mean it’s like my veins are pumping crushed glass, not blood, then, yeah, it’s working.”

“Excellent,” said Abbott. Were Hufflepuffs incapable of recognizing sarcasm? “It should be over in… three, two, one.”

To Draco’s amazement, the burning just—stopped, and was instantly replaced by an equally torturous, agonizing chill. His teeth began chattering as the fire in his nerves rapidly transformed into frost. “He’s going into withdrawal,” Abbott announced. “Pull him out.”

Potter leapt forward, hooked his hands under Draco’s armpits and heaved. Draco was stunned at the sensation of being _lifted_ effortlessly, the muscles of Potter’s arms bunching palpably behind him, and Draco—

Draco wheezed incredulously, but the incredulity soon solidified into a violent envy. So Potter had outpaced him in this, as well. Outgrown him. Out _manned_ him. Draco was a spindly teenager of seventeen, but Potter was a professional Auror in his thirties, taller and broader and meaner after a career of beating the snot out of evildoers.

Which reminded Draco of how Potter and George Weasley had beaten the snot out of _him_. In fifth year. And now, that same Weasley had brewed a potion to cure him, and that same Potter was holding him up? This was irony beyond even a Slytherin’s capacity to appreciate. It bordered on travesty.

Draco struggled to free himself from Potter’s grasp, but Potter merely continued lifting him, like it wasn’t even an exertion, like he was lugging uncooperative Purebloods around on a daily basis.

Who knew? Maybe he was.

Potter set Draco down on a threadbare rug, onto which Draco dripped pathetically while Abbott vigorously toweled him dry. Belatedly, it struck Draco that he was naked, from head to toe, and he shrieked, striving to cover himself.

“Did you—did you _strip me_ while I was unconscious?” Draco demanded. “Me? A Malfoy?”

“Yes, you, a Malfoy,” Abbott sighed. “Cease fussing and let me dry you. You wouldn’t want to catch pneumonia, would you?”

“Pneumonia is for peasants and Muggles,” Draco said, around his still-chattering teeth. “We aristocrats favor wasting away artistically to unknown diseases that are, in all likelihood, the attempts of our impatient heirs to poison us in subtle, undetectable ways.”

“Spoken like a true Slytherin,” Potter said, amused. This was funny to him, was it? Sadist.

“Get your massive lion-paws off me,” Draco said, because Potter’s hands were unfairly huge, but Potter just rubbed his shoulders soothingly and whispered a Latin spell that Draco couldn’t place. Abbott tossed the damp towel across a slab of stone jutting out beside the tub, and proceeded to inspect Draco like a horse breeder would inspect horseflesh.

Draco fought the urge to cover himself again, blushing helplessly at just… dangling like that, for all the world to see. Abbott nodded to herself and exited the bathroom without so much as a by-your-leave, which meant that Draco was alone—and nude—with Potter.

Potter, who didn’t seem to be in a hurry to release Draco. He kept whispering that spell, a spell that made warmth well up within Draco, slow as candle-wax, evening out his breaths and making him drowsy. He sagged against Potter, his shivering and chattering segueing into faint tremors. As the spell concluded, Potter’s lips brushed his ear, light and ticklish.

“Leggo,” Draco insisted, vaguely, because despite the fluffy curtain descending over his consciousness, he registered that this was really quite undignified. And intimate, in a manner that would have been worrisome, had he any modesty left.

“Mm,” said Potter, as if he’d been bewitched, in turn. He stepped around Draco, tipping Draco’s chin up and staring into Draco’s eyes, while Draco focused on remaining upright through the dreamy lassitude that had possessed him. Potter’s big, rough, callused fingers skated along his hips, and Draco quivered.

“What’re you doing?” he slurred, and Potter snapped back to alertness, a shocked, guilty look on his face.

“Sorr—I’m sorry,” he stammered, slipping off his own cloak to drape it on top of the discarded towel. “Put that on. I’ll just. Go outside. Come out when you’re ready.” And Potter disappeared, like a djinn, leaving Draco blinking after him.

“What…?” Draco slumped against the tiles, noting that there was a mirror mounted on the opposite wall. He felt flushed and full and hazy, tingling and over-sensitized. His skin was a pearly, silky pink in the cracked mirror, healed and whole and unburned, and his torso was lean and unblemished. Draco drew nearer to his reflection, studying it absently.

“Enjoyed that, did you?” said the mirror, slyly, and Draco jerked backwards, appalled to realize that he wasn’t exactly… dangling… anymore.

“Fucking hell,” he hissed, his spell-induced languor fracturing into stark terror. Had Potter noticed? Was that why he’d fled like a demon before an exorcist?

“Fucking does tend to land boys in hell,” the mirror simpered. “Especially naughty boys like you.”

“Shut _up_. Dear Merlin, I’m going to _die_.”

“As I gather, you almost did.”

“I can see why you have those ugly cracks,” Draco snarled, hastily shrugging into Potter’s cloak, which smelled of woodsmoke and man and— “You must’ve aggravated people into throwing bars of soap at you.”

“I’d love it if you threw yourself at me,” the mirror said, flirtatiously.

Newly resurrected, and he was already being flirted with? By inanimate objects, no less? On the plus side, Draco’s sex appeal hadn’t diminished, but on the minus side, _Potter had seen his stiffy_. A stiffy that was shrinking due to sheer humiliation, but Draco still belted Potter’s cloak over it. That Draco was dwarfed within that cloak was a further humiliation, additional proof of how Potter had bested him in height and stature. And Potter had been so short, as a boy. Short and scrawny. Draco experienced a wave of intense nostalgia for the past.

“It was an involuntary response,” he told himself, fervently. “Thoroughly involuntary.” After all, he wasn’t attracted to Potter. A few accidental fantasies while bringing himself off notwithstanding, Potter wasn’t his type, at all.

At least, the Potter back then wasn’t.

Draco bundled himself up in all that excess fabric, as if mummifying himself into nigh-invisibility would assuage his battered pride, and barreled out of the bathroom before he convinced himself to cower in there until Potter grew old and passed on.

“But you’re so pretty,” the mirror called after him. “Preen for me a bit longer, would you?”

Draco ignored it, and slammed the bathroom door behind him.

He emerged into the hospital ward, which was deceptively peaceful. Abbott was busy decanting Skele-Gro into miniature flasks. Potter was pacing back and forth, back and forth, his brows lowered pensively. Was the memory of Draco’s overactive nether regions that traumatizing?

Draco’s flush returned with a vengeance, and he decided to distract himself by interrogating Abbott about Weasley’s potion. That Draco could learn from a Weasley surely signaled the oncoming of the Apocalypse.

“You’ll have to consult George about the details,” Abbott said, shelving the flasks after labeling them. “Why are you so interested?”

“Because I plan to be a Potions Master.”

“Like Snape?”

“Yes.” Draco hugged himself, suddenly miserable. “Like Snape.”

Potter broke into the awkward lull. “Hannah, do you have some clothes for Draco to wear?”

“There’s a generic set of clothing in the cupboard above the desk. It’ll resize itself according to the wearer’s shape.”

Potter floated the set towards Draco, and wordlessly indicated that he should change.

Draco wasn’t going to be grateful for Potter’s Gryffindor honor, which kept him from taunting Draco for—for his misbehaving anatomy. He _wasn’t_.

He withdrew behind the folding screen and hopped into trousers that automatically fitted themselves to him. The shirt, likewise, buttoned itself. While the material was dreadfully cheap, Draco assured himself that he’d acquire an adequately fashionable outfit once he’d regained access to his Gringotts vault.

Not to mention his wand.

“Do you have my wand, Potter?” he said, as he strode out in robes so mediocre he could scarcely tolerate them.

“No, we’ll have to visit Ollivander’s.”

“And my parents.”

“Yeah, er. Yeah. We will. But we have to drop by the Ministry, first. Get your record altered to that of a living person’s, so you can buy a registered wand.”

As a former Death Eater, Draco wasn’t eager to go to the Ministry, where he might be threatened with arrest. But given that he’d been dead for years, and that Potter—an Auror—owed him a magical debt, Draco ought to be in the clear. Oughtn’t he?

“I’m Chief Auror,” Potter said, placatingly, as if intuiting Draco’s anxiety. “Nothing untoward will happen to you.”

Was what had happened in the bathroom untoward?

No. Draco wouldn’t dwell on it. Moving on. “It must be maddening, being a pencil-pushing bureaucrat when you must be itching to be out in the field, killing things.”

“Aurors don’t kill,” Potter said, “and I delegate the pencil-pushing to my secretary.”

“A _secretary_. You have a secretary.”

“I still have to sign documents, but I do that at home.”

“Don’t you have a life?”

Potter chuckled sheepishly, his gaze sliding away from Draco. “I guess I don’t.”

“No wife?” Draco inquired, and immediately regretted displaying any interest whatsoever in Potter’s personal affairs.

“Uh. No.”

“No lover?” Draco persisted in his insanity. When Potter shook his head, Draco said, “What about the Weasel girl? Wasn’t she—”

“If you lads are done socializing in my infirmary,” Abbott interrupted, tartly, “I’ll ask you to take your gossiping elsewhere.”

“Sorry,” said Potter, and Draco swallowed as he recalled the previous time Potter had said that. “We’ll get going, shall we?” He ducked out of the hospital wing, beckoning at Draco to follow him.

Draco hesitated, wondering if he should thank Abbott, but he wasn’t used to conveying gratitude with actual sentences. A box of gourmet sweets from Honeydukes would be more appropriate, or a joint family ticket to the Quidditch World Cup. That was how Father thanked his allies, anyhow.

Mind made up, Draco straightened his back and marched out after Potter.

He couldn’t _wait_ to have the money to make casual, magnanimous gestures at a whim. Potter might be Chief Auror, but his wages couldn’t be a fraction of the Malfoy fortune.

Heh.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s “Head Auror” in canon, not “Chief Auror,” but I like chief better. Mostly because I want Harry’s Aurors calling him “chief.”
> 
> Also, Draco doesn’t have any scars from Sectumsempra, thanks to Snape’s timely intervention.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

 

The Ministry had recently been refurbished, if the fresh paint and gleaming marble floors were anything to go by. Gone was the dark wood paneling of yore; only the gilded fireplaces remained. The Atrium was filled with wizards, witches, goblins and various creatures flocking back and forth.

Multicolored memos flitted overhead like brightly-plumed jungle-birds, complete with flapping wings and beaks that pecked at any unauthorized personnel that attempted to intercept them. They were more sentient than the Muggle-inspired ‘planes’ of before. Draco saw a woman in Wizengamot robes with a friendly paper parrot swinging on her braid, and a purple origami stork sauntering sedately by her side.

“They have the self-awareness of owls, without the mess and the droppings,” Potter said, as he escorted Draco to the lifts, walking confidently past the gold-flecked granite desks of the reception. “Dean came up with those. Remember him? Dean Thomas? He’s in charge of the brand new Office of Magical Arts; he designs everything, around here. Sketches that come to life. He’s brilliant.”

“Joy.” Draco sidestepped a particularly aggressive blue finch, which was pecking anybody that got within a foot of it. “Has he married Finnigan, then?”

Potter gaped at Draco in surprise. “You knew about them? Even I didn’t know about them.”

“That’s because I have the perceptiveness of a Slytherin, Potter, whereas you’re a dunce whose only area of expertise is war.”

“You may have a point,” Potter said, thoughtfully. “I was… confused about what to do with peace, until I found out there was no peace. Death Eaters, vampire cults, half-blood extremists… It never ends.”

“Lucky you. You’ll never be out of a job.”

“That wasn’t what I—” Potter huffed. “Yeah, Dean and Seamus got married a decade ago.”

“But you didn’t marry the Weasley girl.”

“No,” Potter said, shortly. Clearly, he was unwilling to discuss it. He led Draco into a lift and hit the button for the fourth level. “We’re going to the Census Office. In the Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages.”

“I’m a time-traveler, Potter, not an amnesiac. I don’t need a running commentary on the workings of the Ministry. Not unless I ask for it.”

“A lot has changed, though.”

“I can tell.” Draco considered the witch beside him dubiously; she had irises that weren’t quite human, silvery and fey, and there was an odd blurriness to her features, like they weren’t entirely settled. A shtriga. Shtrigas were banned from Ministry grounds—or they used to be. So the rights of non-humans had been revised, or were under revision.

Sharing a lift with a man-eating carnivore wasn’t ideal, and Draco inched away from her, until he was behind Potter, shielded by Potter’s… Potterness. The oaf was good for something; he’d killed Voldemort, so a shtriga would be nothing to him.

Potter himself didn’t even glance at her, but despite his easy posture, Draco spotted Potter’s hand drifting crucial millimeters closer to his wand. The shtriga herself quirked an eyebrow at them as she dismounted on the third level, and Potter inclined his head politely.

“What’s [Control of Magical Creatures](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Department_for_the_Regulation_and_Control_of_Magical_Creatures) doing?” Draco complained, when he was certain only humans accompanied them. “Did they collectively lose their minds? A shtriga in the Ministry? Honestly?”

“Lavender Brown leads the [Being Division](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Being_Division). She’s been a werewolf ever since Fenrir Greyback turned her, and she’s launched rehabilitation programs for those who got turned involuntarily or those who choose to reform, whether they’re vampires or werewolves or—or any number of beings previously classified as dangerous or illegal.”

“Is she serious?” Draco said, disbelievingly.

“Very serious. Lavender’s getting anti-discrimination laws passed for the employment, education and housing of weres. She calls it the Lupin Initiative. She’s secured funding for information campaigns to increase public acceptance. It’s been a success, so far.”

“Until a shtriga gets employed as a governess, sucks some infant’s blood dry and eats the corpse,” Draco said, scathingly. “It’s not prejudice if it’s _justified_ , Potter.”

“You should meet Lavender,” Potter said. “She’ll talk your ears off.”

“Or bite them off.”

“Draco,” Potter chided, as they approached Level Four. “Most were-folk fought on the side of the Light. They’re not monsters.”

“No, just people with more powers to abuse. The more power someone has, the less you should trust them.”

“And yet you want power, don’t you? As a Slytherin?”

“We Slytherins appreciate that you have to fight fire with fire, and power with power. That’s the only solution there is.”

“I disagree.”

“Of course you do. You’re blind to the power you yourself have accumulated, aren’t you? How pure-hearted of you, to occupy a pedestal without any understanding of the advantages it brings you. You wouldn’t be half as useful to the Ministry without your power, Potter—be it magical or political. You wouldn’t have been a threat to Voldemort. What would you have done against him, without your power? Without allies with power of their own? Being powerless means being useless. Your naivety doesn’t make it otherwise.”

Again, Potter was thoughtful rather than combative. “I _do_ understand my power. I just. I don’t think I deserve more because of it.”

“You still get more. You always will.” Not that Draco was resentful of Potter’s magical aptitude, or of Potter’s aura, heavy and broodingly electric, like a storm-cloud ever on the verge of a storm, of thunder and lightning and cataclysms. Potter could destroy the Ministry, if he wanted to. But he didn’t want to. How could he resist it? How could he resist remaking the world in his image?

Gryffindors. They were unfathomable.

Potter shepherded Draco out of the lift and into the gloomy, windowless Census Office. It was to the left and on a tangent, the walls peppered with graphs of interminable data about the population, animated statistics about blood status, calendars dating from the Renaissance, and magical crime and ages of manifestation, all painstakingly cross-referenced with studies that had no doubt been authored by Ravenclaws. Draco would wager that ninety percent of the office was manned by Ravenclaws.

An elderly, stick-like fellow with a monocle and a shabby quill hunched over the main desk, his bald pate shining in the dull light of an Everlit table-lamp. He was scribbling numbers in a ledger that absorbed the digits and printed them back out, adding or subtracting them in neat columns.

The brass plate teetering on the edge of the desk read, “Calumnus C. Carmichael.”

“Yes?” said Carmichael, without looking up. The ledger flipped a page, and he scribbled on.

Potter shuffled on his feet. “I’m here to report a, er. A resurrection.”

Carmichael’s quill paused. “Interesting,” he said, and set the quill aside.

Draco got the impression that Carmichael did not find many visitors interesting. He had the air of a veteran who had seen it all.

Carmichael adjusted his monocle and scrutinized Draco. “Mr. Potter,” he said, “it seems you have unearthed a Malfoy.” He said ‘unearthed’ as if Potter had dug Draco out of an archaeological site. Or a grave.

“Um. Yes. Draco Malfoy. He isn’t as dead as… we assumed he was.”

“Necromancy?”

“No.”

“Ancestral magic? Reanimation? Reincarnation? Cloning?”

“Uh, none of those. It’s time travel.”

“Interesting,” Carmichael reiterated. He wandlessly summoned a directory titled ‘L to O,’ so thick that it must weigh more than the desk itself, and opened it to the letter ‘M.’ He tapped it with his wand, and a sheaf of parchment popped out.

It had Draco’s name on it.

Draco craned his neck, morbidly fascinated by how he was ‘Deceased.’ Narcissa Black Malfoy and Lucius Malfoy were listed as his next-of-kin, both alive. To his astonishment, he had a young Tonks listed as a relative. An Edward Remus Tonks Lupin, currently seventeen, just like Draco. Andromeda Tonks was alive, but Nymphadora Tonks, Edward’s mother, was deceased. It didn’t take much for Draco to deduce how and why she had died, given that the year of her death coincided with Draco’s.

He had a cousin. A cousin his age. A cousin with a werewolf for a father, and a Metamorphmagus for a mother. Although Edward’s blood status was dubious, he must be powerful. A credit to the Black line.

How would Draco compare? The ability to time travel should make him equally powerful, if not more, shouldn’t it?

“Now,” said Carmichael, tapping the parchment with his quill and deleting the ‘Deceased’ field, “Before altering Mr. Malfoy’s census record, I have to obtain a blood sample from Mr. Malfoy to confirm that his magical signature is identical to what it was. You, Mr. Potter, will also have to sign as a witness. The Census Office requires signed testimony from a Ministry employee, attesting to the identity of the resurrected individual and detailing the circumstances of the resurrection.”

Draco harrumphed. “Can you guarantee that you won’t misuse my blood to interfere with my private undertakings or to compromise my fundamental freedoms?”

Carmichael regarded him steadily. “You may either contribute your blood or remain deceased, and therefore a non-entity in Wizarding society, incapable of acquiring a wand or performing most forms of magic. The choice is yours.”

“For god’s sake, Draco, don’t be paranoid,” Potter said in exasperation. “It’s just a prick.”

Was that a jibe at Draco for the Inadvertent Stiffy Incident? “Keep your prick to yourself, Potter,” he bristled, and Potter made a strangled sound.

Carmichael angled his quill’s sharpened tip at Draco. “Press your thumb against the nib until a drop of blood emerges, and ensure that it falls upon your name. Should the magical signature match that previously registered through your wand, your record will be revised accordingly.”

Draco grumbled to himself about an overreaching Ministry and the risks of bloodletting for a Pureblood wizard whose tissues and fluids contained infinite magical potential, and pressed his thumb to the quill. He flinched at the sting, and held his pierced thumb above his name. A fat bead of blood welled up and fell, and Draco’s record instantly altered itself to ‘Alive.’

“My felicitations,” Carmichael said, blandly. “You are formally among the living.”

Draco rolled his eyes and licked delicately at his thumb, chasing a second drop of blood as it meandered down to his wrist. He tasted copper, and made a moue.

“Mr. Potter,” said Carmichael, spelling the quill clean and extending it, “if you will.”

Potter, who was fascinated by the downward journey of Draco’s tongue—what, did he imagine Slytherins had forked tongues, like serpents?—reached for the quill distractedly. “Erm, what am I… that is to say, how should I…?”

“Fill in the space with your account of how you discovered Mr. Malfoy. If you are unable to explain the specifics, do not concern yourself; nobody can explain the vagaries of time. We will have the Department of Mysteries conduct an independent investigation into this episode of temporal displacement.”

“An investigation?” Malfoys had a healthy mistrust of investigations. “Will I be compelled to cooperate?”

“That is for the Unspeakables to decide. As you have nothing of utility other than your magical signature and the account that Mr. Potter will corroborate in his statement to the Census Office, you will very likely be undisturbed.”

“Hermione’s Chief Unspeakable,” Potter added, like that was a reassurance. When it came to her quest for knowledge, Granger was _terrifying_. “She probably already has a hypothesis. She invariably does.”

Granger. Devising hypotheses. About him. That wasn’t frightening. At all.

Potter bent over the desk and wrote a spiky, untidy description of what happened in the Room of Hidden Things. It was decently structured, perhaps because Potter routinely penned reports for the Auror Office, but the unreadability of that handwriting would’ve had Snape slashing it out in red ink.

Draco’s own cursive was gracefully calligraphic, as a wizard’s mastery of the written script was indicative of high breeding. That was what the tutor Father had hired for Draco had said. Before rapping Draco’s knuckles for a lopsided ‘e.’

Carmichael scanned Potter’s atrocious longhand. “That should do it.” He duplicated Draco’s record with a _Duplicare_ , and handed the copy to Draco before reinserting the original sheaf of paper into the directory of names. “This certificate will allow the revived person to open new bank accounts or access old ones, qualify for inheritance in any wills in which he is named, lay claim to property that may have passed onto others or rightfully contest a claim to said property, engage in professional or business enterprises, register wands and brooms, marry legally, apply for job positions and apprenticeships, pay taxes, file for rebates, et cetera. The certificate has a Ministry counter-forgery charm on it that should satisfy most institutions, but should you encounter any questions as to its validity, contact the Census Office.”

“This is what I have to show to Ollivander to get a wand?”

“Mr. Ollivander, like all wand manufacturers, must confer with me prior to issuing a wand to a resurrected witch or wizard, even if presented with a valid certificate. It should not delay the process unduly.”

“Thank you,” said Potter, casting a Safekeeping Spell on the parchment before Draco tucked it into the innermost pocket of his robes.

“If you wish to thank me,” Carmichael said, “have Ms. Granger share her… hypothesis… with me.”

“She’s an Unspeakable.” Potter gesticulated uncertainly, as if describing the ineffable nature of Unspeakables. “She’s not into sharing. But I’ll try.”

“Please do. Farewell, Mr. Malfoy, and good luck.”

 

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

As they got back into the lift, Draco asked, “If you’re an Auror and Granger’s an Unspeakable, what were you two doing at Hogwarts?”

“We were helping Luna restore the Room of Requirement,” Potter said. “It was damaged by the Fiendfyre—or at least the part of it that was the Room of Hidden Things was damaged—and we didn’t want to rob students of having a place to store mementos, to hide what was cherished by them. So much of Hogwarts’ history was lost in the Fiendfyre. We had to start rebuilding that history, one keepsake at a time.”

“Weren’t any of the professors up to the task?”

“They helped at different stages, depending on their talents. Neville—”

“Longbottom’s a _professor_?”

“Of Herbology, yeah. He pitched in with the earth magic, reconnecting the Room of Requirement to the rest of Hogwarts. He said it was like reattaching an amputated limb and getting blood to flow into it; he had to get the magic of Hogwarts flowing through the Room again, to bring it back to life.”

“Who else helped? At this rate, I’d expect Filch to make a meaningful contribution.”

“Neville’s a genius, Draco,” Potter chastised him. “Earth magic is ruddy hard. Anyway,” he said, “Professor Vector recalculated and reconstructed the Arithmantic runes that kept the Room of Requirement hidden. It was a sort of shielding, similar to what Gringotts uses to block access to its vaults.”

“So what you’re telling me is that Vector would make a skilled bank-robber.”

Potter chortled. “That’s a neat mental image. She’d be the most logical bank-robber in the world. But, yeah, we couldn’t have renovated the Room without her. Nearly Headless Nick and the older portraits gave us accounts of when the Room was built, and Parvati—she teaches Divination—located the Room for us whenever it, um, vanished on its own. It’s Unplottable, so we couldn’t have found it with a map. Ernie repaired the charms, since that’s his subject, and Hagrid got rid of the Nargles that had taken up residence in the Room. Ron re-transfigured the entrance so that it could move around and reform itself from any chunk of the castle’s rock. It was a monumental undertaking. Went on for a year. Hermione and I went in to tie everyone else’s magic together, basically; we didn’t get involved until the culmination of the project.”

Draco didn’t know what to comment on—the astounding revelation that Divination was useful, or that Longbottom was competent, or that Weasley could teach _anything_ , let alone Transfiguration. And Nargles were real? Since when? Had Lovegood dreamed them into existence?

Before they could arrive at the Atrium, they were interrupted by an orange paper bird that darted into the lift at Level One and all but flew into Potter’s hair.

“It’s from Minister Shacklebolt,” Potter said, opening it and reading the missive. “He’s ordering us to meet him.”

“What, now?”

“Yes, now.”

Dread swooped low in Draco’s stomach, and Potter’s troubled frown made him even more anxious.

“Don’t worry,” Potter said, as they alighted into the Minister for Magic’s wing. The luxurious mauve carpeting and twinkling chandeliers made it plain that they were at the center of Wizarding politics, with twin mahogany doors leading to the offices of the Senior Undersecretary and the Junior Assistant to the Minister. The wrought iron door to the Minister’s chamber had burnished, rectangular doorknobs and was guarded by a pair of looming stone griffins, whose ruby eyes glittered like bloody jewels. Their deadly claws curled and uncurled, and as Potter advanced on them, their onyx wings unfolded to obstruct the door, flaring with knife-like feathers.

“Margerie, Hyacinth,” Potter said, indulgently, as if addressing obstinate children. “It’s me, Harry. Come on. Let us in.”

The griffin on the right snuffled at Potter before collapsing its—her?—wings, shedding the dust of masonry as she did so.

“Good girl, Hyacinth.” Potter patted her head and Draco watched, flabbergasted, as Hyacinth’s sister Margerie purred when Potter patted her, too.

“You’re a flirt,” Draco declared. “I always suspected you were, but this? Is ludicrous. Do you have many girlfriends among the gargoyles?”

“Don’t be silly,” Potter said, scratching Margerie between the ears. “They remind me of Buckbeak, is all.”

“That demonic animal? To whom I practically lost my arm?” Draco scowled. “Are you sure you’re not a Dark Lord in the making, Potter? You’re a beast whisperer. Much like Voldemort was, except that he tamed giant reptiles and you tame giant… mammals. And they aren’t even proper mammals; they’re pseudo-mammalian hybrid freaks.”

Hyacinth swiped her claws in his direction, and Draco sprang back, cursing.

“See! See that? They’re vicious and evil!”

“Only because you insult them. Buckbeak wouldn’t have gone for your arm if you hadn’t insulted him.”

“Oh, of course, because verbal taunts warrant _total evisceration_.”

Potter’s mouth twitched. “Losing your arm wouldn’t be total evisceration.”

“Perhaps you can be cavalier about losing appendages, Potter, but some of us have an instinct called self-preservation.” Draco smoothed his robes apprehensively. “An instinct that is urging me to stay as far away from Shacklebolt as possible. He was a member of the Order of the Phoenix; I wager he’ll hex me on sight.”

“The Minister can’t hex people, period.”

“No, only have them executed.”

“Not without a trial.”

“Ah, trials. What entertaining pastimes they are. Positively refreshing.”

“I’m Chief Auror,” Potter said. Obviously, his propensity for exploiting his rank—and his celebrity—hadn’t left him. It was the bastard’s sole Slytherin trait. “The Minister won’t take drastic actions against you unless he has my cooperation.”

“Why would the enemy that cast Sectumsempra on me not cooperate with my lawful and justifiable persecution?”

“That was—I’m sorry for that. I’m so, so sorry for that. I was ignorant about what Sectumsempra did when I cast it. Not that my ignorance excuses my almost killing you, but… I never meant to kill you. And you’re not my enemy. Not anymore.”

“Because you owe me a Life Debt?”

“Yeah, um. That.” Potter rotated the rectangular knobs in careful, clicking increments and in a precise sequence, as if unlocking a safe, and the doors swung inward. “Whatever you do, let me do the talking, all right?”

“Fear not,” Draco said. “I have the utmost faith in a Gryffindor’s capacity for diplomacy and tact.”

Potter shot him a dirty look. And then… he fixed his expression, somehow, until it was an intimidating combination of menacing and purposeful. Was this his Auror-on-the-hunt expression? Even his shoulders seemed bulkier, and he exuded an assurance that would have damsels in distress swooning into his stupidly muscular arms.

Draco wasn’t a damsel. That he was in distress was neither here nor there. And he was only hot under the collar because he was irritated by Potter’s testosterone-laden display. Irritated. Yes. Very, very _irritated_.

“Minister,” Potter said, striding into the office like he owned it. Draco skulked in after him, like a shadow. A handsome-if-moderately-petrified shadow. “You wanted to speak to me?”

Kingsley Shacklebolt was stationed behind a colossal outcrop of polished oak that sprouted out of the floor in a wide, gnarly trunk but had a flat, glossy top, upon which papers folded themselves into memo-birds and ink-pots of every color had Auto-Reply Quills dipping in and out of them. “I wanted to speak to you _and_ Draco Malfoy,” Shacklebolt said, with authority. “Have a seat, both of you.”

Draco and Potter sat on the padded chairs facing Shacklebolt, and Draco discreetly observed his surroundings.

Father had brought Draco here, eons ago, for a cordial meeting with Minister Millicent Bagnold, when she had been up for reelection in 1989. The Malfoy name had gotten them in without an appointment, and Bagnold had been ingratiating, as Father was among her primary campaign donors.

Now, the room was less ornate and more functional, with a distinct lack of antiques and vases but an abundance of Foe-Glasses and Secrecy Sensors. That none of the devices were disguised spoke volumes about Shacklebolt’s forthrightness and his refusal to pussyfoot around the realities of political leadership.

If Dumbledore had been a craftsman of circumspection, Shacklebolt was a sledgehammer of righteousness.

A sledgehammer poised to smash insects like Draco into sticky little smears.

No refreshments were proffered. No lemon drops. No niceties. Shacklebolt’s penetrating eyes rested on Draco and took the measure of him just as Snape would take the measure of a key potion ingredient.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Shacklebolt said, “suffice it to say that I wondered whether the dour Mr. Carmichael had at last developed a sense of humor, because receiving an alert from the Census Office that Draco Malfoy had been resurrected was—well, it seemed like an ingenious prank. Yet here you are.”

“Lovegood didn’t notify you?” Draco blurted, before he recollected Potter’s admonishment to cede the talking to him.

“Headmistress Lovegood proclaims the independence and sanctity of Hogwarts as an educational institution. Nothing within its walls is shared with the Ministry unless she deems it necessary. The Hogwarts portraits that acted as my informants were taken down or repainted, and the headmistress said to me that I was welcome to have tea with her should I have queries about the inner workings of the school. Queries she was at liberty not to answer.”

Lovegood had a spine. She rose a dozen or so notches in Draco’s estimation.

“But that is not what you are in my chambers to address. Potter, despite the Life Debt you famously owe him, I cannot discount that Mr. Malfoy was involved in Hogwarts’ downfall shortly before his… death. We are dealing with a Death Eater who is still loyal to the cause.”

“I was never loyal to the _cause_ ,” Draco fumed, before Potter could forestall him. “I was loyal to my family.”

“A family devoted to Voldemort.”

Was Shacklebolt acquainted with no Slytherins? Had he never seen enlightened self-interest occasionally and disastrously turn out to be not so enlightened, after all? These were tactical mistakes, not beloved dogmas. Draco no more believed in Voldemort’s ramblings than he did in Trelawney’s tea leaves.

While the Malfoys had initially harbored Pureblood supremacist sentiments, Voldemort’s unadulterated barminess had set them right. Being tortured had cemented their defection. They had been gingerly extricating themselves from Voldemort’s coterie for a decade. At a snail’s pace, because they _had_ aimed to survive their desertion, but still. It was a desertion. A desertion that, however invisible it was to outsiders like Shacklebolt, had nevertheless been underway.

But before Draco could defend his family’s admittedly sketchy strategic investments, Potter snatched the reigns of the conversation from him.

“Draco was sixteen when he was pressured into Voldemort’s service,” Potter said, calmly and unshakably. “As a wizard who was underage at the time of being given the Mark, he’s not accountable for it in a court of law. He’s only accountable for crimes he committed after turning seventeen, but those crimes were committed under duress, to protect his parents, and in spite of that duress, he risked his own life to save mine. Twice. That should absolve him of legal culpability, shouldn’t it? And prove that he wasn’t ‘loyal’ to Voldemort’s cause?”

“I am not the Wizengamot,” Shacklebolt said. “I can’t put Malfoy on trial in my office, without any evidence, and absolve him exclusively on the word of the Boy Who Lived.”

“Can’t you?” Potter challenged. The challenge reverberated with Potterish conviction. “I respect you dearly, sir, but will your ratings withstand having a row with me in the newspapers, and over the fate of a seventeen-year-old boy? It’d agitate the populace against the Ministry.”

Now, that… _That_ was flawlessly Slytherin. Draco goggled at Potter as if Potter had grown a tail. And cloven hooves. Who had taught Potter this kind of machination? Who had Potter sold his soul to?

Soul or not, Potter’s blackmailing was effective. There was a tense silence, but when Potter didn’t budge, Shacklebolt acquiesced. “Fine,” he said, grudgingly. “I’ll give the young Mr. Malfoy a conditional Minister’s Pardon.”

Draco was glad they were sitting, because his knees were watery with relief.

“Thank you, sir,” Potter gushed, effusively, as if he hadn’t just browbeaten the _Minister for Magic_. 

Shacklebolt held up his hand. “A _conditional_ pardon, Potter. The conditions are that you take unequivocal responsibility for his case, that you have him under constant magical surveillance, that you meet with him once every day for a month, and once every week thereafter, that you disclose any illegal activity of his, and that you ensure he does not establish or reestablish ties with active Death Eaters, criminals or those with… controversial… ideologies. Is that understood?”

“Aye, sir.”

“He’s your pet; he’s your problem. Keep him on a leash.”

Potter choked, going the shade of a tomato. “A lea—”

“And as for you, Mr. Malfoy, you must submit to a Trace being affixed to your wand, a modified version of the Trace placed on minors to monitor the use of underage magic. You must also comply with Wizarding law and allow your wand to be subjected to a [_Prior Incantato_](http://pottermore.wikia.com/wiki/Priori_Incantato) on a randomized schedule, to be performed by an unbiased Ministry official not known personally to either you or Mr. Potter. You must make yourself available to have the wand-check performed regardless of its convenience to you, and must report promptly to the Ministry and go directly to the official performing the wand-check on that particular day.”

Draco reeled. It was like a prison sentence… but without the bars.

“Should all these conditions be met, Mr. Malfoy will be exempt from a court trial, and will be immune to any charges brought against him based on past misdeeds. The pardon will become unconditional after a year.”

Potter gusted out a loud breath. “That’s… more than I’d hoped for, thanks, Minister.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Shacklebolt said, ominously. “I don’t trust the snake not to stray. And it’ll be an awful lot of extra work for you, keeping track of where he is and what he’s doing. He’ll be your burden.”

“He won’t,” said Potter, with an earnestness that Draco couldn’t fathom the source of. “He’ll never be a burden to me.”

“Wait in the lounge. I’ll have a contract drawn up for the pardon, a contract you’ll have to sign.”

“My fingers’ll fall off with all this signing,” Draco whined, defaulting to brattiness because he didn’t want to let on how shaken he was by this ordeal.

“You’ll get a copy of the pardon,” Shacklebolt said to Potter, like Draco wasn’t there. “With the Ministry’s seal affixed to it.” He kneaded his temples, as if warding off an imminent headache. “Are you happy, now? This Malfoy will evade imprisonment, even if the others didn’t.”

It took Draco a minute to realize what Shacklebolt was implying. And just like that, his dread was back. His heart pounded, rabbit-fast and sickening.

“What,” Draco said, and he couldn’t even punctuate the question correctly. “ _What_.”

“Oh, crud,” said Potter, as Shacklebolt looked at him askance. “I haven’t told him about his parents.”

Draco’s nails dug into his palm. “Told me what?”

 

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

 

Potter fidgeted restlessly. “You ought to sit, Draco.”

“I _am_ sitting.”

“Er. Yeah. You are.”

“My parents are in Azkaban,” Draco hazarded, a block of ice forming in his chest. It felt like despair, like the gradual deadening of his limbs. Of his soul. “They’re in Azkaban, for life.” So they hadn’t managed their defection, after all. They hadn’t redeemed themselves sufficiently enough for the vicious, sanctimonious, vengeful vultures of the Wizengamot.

“No,” said Potter. “No, that’s not—”

“They’re in a civilian-style facility,” Shacklebolt said, disapprovingly. “They live comfortably, have their own furnished rooms, and even, as far as I’m aware, a herb garden. It’s a travesty of justice.”

“No, it isn’t,” Potter said. “I couldn’t—after what Draco did for me, I couldn’t let his folks rot in _Azkaban_ , of all places. And they did defect. They weren’t Death Eaters, at the Battle of Hogwarts.”

Shacklebolt scoffed. “Neither did they fight for us.”

“Wait,” Draco said, that block of ice thawing with a confusing combination of hope and sadness, because, while Mother and Father were imprisoned, they wouldn’t have their spirits crushed by Azkaban. He remembered what Azkaban had done to his father, in a relatively short span. Decades would have… would have broken him. Would have broken them both. “What do you mean, you couldn’t let them?”

Potter scratched a patch of stubble on his jaw. “Um. I just.”

“Potter argued their case,” Shacklebolt said. “He said that not only had they defected, but that Narcissa Malfoy in particular had assured our victory. Because of the assistance she ultimately rendered our cause, and because of your father’s defection, their sentences were reduced in severity and length. Potter did that. As in, if he hadn’t represented them in front of the Wizengamot, they might’ve gone to Azkaban for a lifetime of service to the Dark Lord, in spite of their belated switching of allegiances.”

“You mentioned length,” Draco said. “How long will they be… where they are? And where _are_ they?”

“They have nine more years on their sentence,” said Shacklebolt, “and the mockery of a prison they’re in is a low-security compound in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, in western Wales, which is hidden from Muggles in the forest, disguised as part of the woodlands and isolated by powerful Disillusionment Charms.”

Draco gawped. “My parents live in the woods. In. The woods. My parents, that used to live in a mansion. Live in a forest hut.”

“It’s a nice hut?” Potter said, although he had an awful shame to him, as if it was his personal responsibility that the Malfoys were ruined. It was. If he hadn’t prevailed… If Voldemort had won…

No. Not that. Even Father had opposed that, by the end, and Draco was just being vindictive because… because they’d picked the wrong side. It had been a grievous error. An ideological error of epic proportions, but most of all, an error in _calculation_ , and that was humiliating, for a Slytherin. For a dynasty of Slytherins, it was unthinkable.

“What of our moneys?” Draco asked. “Our properties? The Malfoy Mansion, and our summer home in Florence, and the winter home in Paris, and the—”

“All confiscated,” Shacklebolt said, brusquely.

“We’re poor.” Draco couldn’t comprehend it. “We’re _poor_? The Ministry ate up everything we’d ever accomplished or accumulated—our ancestral art, our heirlooms, our treasures, our very soul? The Ministry effectively gave us the Dementor’s Kiss.”

Potter rocked, like he’d been slapped.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Shacklebolt continued, “it was hardly a Dementor’s Kiss. Many of those ‘accomplishments’ were the products of the dogma of blood purity and the oppression of or outright theft from Muggles, and many of those ‘accumulations’ were often illegal and highly suspect. The Ministry was a shambles after the war, and if your ill-gotten gains finally redeemed themselves in rebuilding the very fabric of Wizarding civilization, what of it?”

“What of it?” Draco said, belligerently. “ _What of it?_ Potter got his father’s Invisibility Cloak, but I get sod all? Did you forget that my great-great-great-uncle Zabian was the inventor of the [Blood-Replenishing Potion](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Blood-Replenishing_Potion)? That his Potions equipment was still preserved in our laboratory? That said equipment had as much historical significance as Godric Gryffindor’s sword, if not more, inasmuch as his potion saved more lives than the sword did? Including your precious Arthur Weasley’s life,” Draco sneered. “Congratulations. You’ve erased—”

“ _We’ve_ erased?” Shacklebolt rose to his full height, crackling with magic, and Draco shrank into his chair. “I do not need to hear this from those who were prepared to erase the majority of the human race for not conforming to delusional ideals of magical supremacy. Potter, get him out of here. Before I change my mind about _letting_ you get him out of here.”

“But,” Draco began, only for Potter to grab his elbow and drag him bodily from the office. “But…!”

“Shut up, or he’ll throw you into that hut you say your parents are in.” Potter ushered him past Hyacinth and Margerie, who mewled forlornly at Potter’s departure, like abandoned kittens. “We’ll wait in the lounge for the contract, so you can get your Minister’s Pardon. After you have it, you can return to rile him up at your convenience.”

“He won’t cancel the pardon?” Because Draco would return and lambaste the Minister. At a later date. A safer date.

“He’s a man of his word. He loathes everyone that supported Voldemort, even for an instant, but if he makes a promise, he delivers on it.”

“Can I see my parents? Today?”

“Not yet. Sorry. You’ll have to apply for a visitor’s pass. Which might take a while to ratify, considering you’re resurrected, so… I, um, applied for you.”

“You did? When?”

“While you slept in the Hogwarts infirmary. Since I put my name to it, as your sponsor, the Pembrokeshire Commune should let you visit before the thirtieth of the month.”

“That’s a fortnight away!”

“Sorry,” Potter repeated.

All these unsolicited apologies from Draco’s apparently not-so-eternal nemesis were discomfiting. Draco chose to dwell on his tragic circumstances, which were getting so tragic that he could double as the attractively tormented star of one of his mother’s horrid romance novels. He’d become a genre cliché. All that remained was for him to rip a bodice. Pity he preferred breeches.

“I’m a pauper,” Draco mourned. “I’m a _pauper_ , Potter. Me! And my parents, can you conceive of it? My mother, with all her silken dresses. My father, whose wineglasses were cut from gems. And who shelters our House Elves?”

“You care about your House Elves?” Potter said, skeptically.

“With the exception of Dobby,” Draco sniffed, “our House Elves were obedient and exemplary in the arts of service. We treated them graciously. Most of them had been with us for generations, and they were almost honorary members of our clan.”

“Almost,” Potter said, and there was a puzzling brittleness to his tone. “Dobby—Dobby was a dear friend.”

“A…” Draco trailed off. “Was. Oh. So, he’s. Did he…?”

“Yes,” Potter said, tightly, as they got to the lounge. “Your House Elves joined Hermione’s impromptu postwar revolution, so you should reassess how you treated them.”

Potter was awfully touchy about Dobby’s… non-existence. Perhaps, without a loving family, Potter clung irrationally even to inferior beings.

Inferior.

Draco’s conscience twinged as he recalled Dobby bringing him his milk when he was five, and bringing it again when Draco knocked it off the breakfast table, and again, and again, perfectly-warmed each time.

 

* * *

In an hour, the contract was signed, the pardon was issued, and Draco, who had entered the Ministry the proud and wealthy heir of an ancient Wizarding lineage, departed it a pardoned criminal whose parents were incarcerated criminals. Impoverished criminals.

“Hmph,” Draco said. “Homeless as I am, I ought to find a gutter to spend the night in.” He peered around him, at the dizzyingly clattering, buzzing, vibrating Muggle world, and tried not to quail. Malfoys didn’t quail. “Might as well be a Muggle gutter. Gutters are the same everywhere, I expect. A Wizarding gutter wouldn’t be superior to a Muggle gutter, other than being more creative in its stenches, given that they’d include rotting [Nogtail](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Nogtail) corpses and regurgitated potions.”

But Potter grabbed him anew. This was becoming a habit of his. Malfoy-grabbing.

“What?” Draco said, irritably.

“You… You can… I… I have a flat.”

“Yes,” Draco drawled. “You have a habitat. Like most creatures do. Thanks for rubbing that in my face, Potter.”

“No, I meant—you can live there with me.” Potter’s cheeks went pink. “If you’re. Okay. With it. Maybe.”

_What?_

So these were the depths Draco had sunk to. That a man who grew up in hand-me-downs was offering him refuge.

“I don’t want your charity, Potter,” Draco spat.

“It’s not charity. I owe you a Life Debt. It’s my duty to help you in any manner I can, as far as I can. If I resist helping you, my magic will punish me for it. You know that.”

Draco narrowed his eyes speculatively. He could tell that Potter was being a dumb, thoughtlessly generous Gryffindor git, and that Potter wasn’t just offering because his magic was forcing him to do so, but that he owed Draco was a fact. It assuaged Draco’s ego that, once informed of the debt, the wider public would immediately assume that Draco condescending to live with Potter was an honorable and dignified method of balancing the scales. If anything, Draco deigning to allow Potter to repay his debt in such a humane fashion, without lording it over him in even more drastic ways, would be seen as an act of kindness.

Nobody would think Draco was a beggar. Nobody would think that a Malfoy was incapable of supporting himself.

And, regardless of public opinion, there was no harm in saving on the rent. Even when he was awarded an apprenticeship, all apprentices were paid at the minimum wage, and it was understood that they either lived with their families for the duration of the apprenticeship, or found shoddy lodgings that they shared with fellow apprentices of their acquaintance.

Draco had no intention of sharing lodgings with the dregs of society, like—Merlin forbid—the Weasleys. If he had to tolerate Potter’s company, he would, especially given that this older Potter seemed as dedicated to not antagonizing him as the previous Potter was to constantly provoking him. It must be a side-effect of the Life Debt, and a surprisingly pleasant side-effect, at that. As a brewer of potions, Draco was unaccustomed to pleasant side-effects.

If Draco took Potter up on his offer—no, his _repayment_ , which Draco was absolutely entitled to—then he’d save his meager wages from his apprenticeship, and be able to deposit them in the Malfoy vault at Gringotts, such that he would, upon being confirmed as a Potions master, have enough money to rent or buy a decent laboratory, with residential quarters attached.

Of course, if Draco secured a teaching position at Hogwarts, he wouldn’t have to worry about quarters, and he’d have access to the finest laboratory of them all. Without charge. He’d have even more Galleons left over to reestablish the Malfoy title as a title associated with loftiness and glamor. Draco was not planning to be a pauper indefinitely.

Hm. He might have to take to visiting the aging Slughorn regularly, making oblique references to his own research whilst flattering Slughorn for his experience and his status in the Potions community, so that when Slughorn retired—an event that would, no doubt, occur in the next five or so years—Slughorn would have Draco topmost in his mind, as the candidate he would recommend to Lovegood, to replace him.

Draco would have to play a long game, but long games were fun to play. He was, after all, a Slytherin.

“Draco?” Potter was watching him with a sort of suspenseful fascination. “Have you decided where you’d like to live?”

“I have no choice but you, do I? What would I do, without any money? Whore myself out in Knockturn?”

“The Minister wouldn’t let that happen,” Potter said, horrified.

“No, he’d just lock me up for ‘observation,’ limiting my freedom of movement, and hampering any efforts I might make to build a career or make myself self-sufficient. And I will make myself self-sufficient, Potter, mark my words.”

“I’m sure you will. I’m just saying—” Potter smacked his faintly lined forehead. “If you truly despise living with me, you could nominate somebody else. I could still fulfill Shacklebolt’s requirement of monitoring you, by dropping by to check up on you, everyday.”

“Who else would I nominate? I have no legal guardians, nor friends I could live with.”

“What about Zabini? Or Parkinson?”

“Both declared Pureblood supremacists? That would do wonders for my reputation. Shacklebolt would be chomping at the bit with the urge to apprehend me. Besides, who would hire me, if I maintained those connections? No, you’re my best bet, Potter.” Draco leveled a severe look at him. “You’d better pay off.”

Potter lit up.

He literally _lit up_ , like a chandelier in the Malfoy Manor with an overenthusiastic Lumos cast upon it.

It was—

It was astonishing, that Draco could inspire what appeared to be genuine joy in Harry Potter. In his erstwhile enemy.

Senility had, evidently, driven Potter quite mad.

That, or the Life Debt.

“Let’s get you some clothes, then,” Potter said cheerfully, guiding Draco with a hand placed low on Draco’s back. Draco jumped at the touch. “Robes from Madam Malkin’s and, oh, would you like an owl of your own? I have two: a Ministry-assigned owl for classified documents, which is an owl I can’t share with you, unfortunately, but my second owl’s privately-owned, an ill-tempered critter named Screech. For, er, obvious reasons.”

Potter’s babbling notwithstanding, Draco was stunned at how thrilled Potter was to buy stuff for him. Draco couldn’t sustain his resentment at having to depend on Potter, not when Potter was clearly dedicated to doing the opposite of making Draco feel like an unwanted leech. Rather, Draco got the distinct impression that _he_ was indulging _Potter_. Which was peculiar in the extreme.

“I’ll benefit more from a pre-trained owl,” Draco said, as Potter nodded along.

“Yeah. ’Course you will. Your apprenticeship correspondence may be mislaid by a new owl. Tell me if you’re hungry; we could stop by Florean’s for an ice-cream, or those chocolate Belgian waffles with sprinkles.”

“Fucking hell, Potter, this is a shopping trip, not a jaunt for first-years. Contain yourself.”

“Right.” But Potter didn’t deflate. He grinned unflappably, instead. The age sloughed off him, the midday sunshine and his damnable exuberance melting away his wrinkles, as if they were never there. “Madam Malkin’s it is.”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, my Draco knows about Harry’s Invisibility Cloak being passed down from James. Possibly because he spent a majority of his school years mutually stalking Harry? Heh.

**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Want updates and sneak previews? Follow me on [Tumblr](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)!


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